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unaffordable renewables
Another Chance to see the Awesome Documentary….DownWind! Wed. June 11, @ 8pm.
Rebecca Thompson Speaking of movies, DOWN WIND airs @SunNewsNetwork tomorrow at 8pm ET. #ondebate #voteon A tell-all about the Ontario green energy scam!
Whether you are watching it again, or seeing it for the first time, this movie is a must-see! You will be amazed that
this kind of scam, could be perpetrated, on such a wide scale! Everyone should watch this, before voting!!!
Renewable Energy is a Novelty Form of Energy, Not Fit for Everyday Use!
Britain readies ‘last resort’ measures to keep the lights on
National Grid to begin recruiting businesses who will be paid to
switch off if needed to protect consumer supplies as a “last resort”
“The lights are going to stay on,” Ed Davey said.
Britain may be forced to use “last resort” measures to avert blackouts in coming winters, Ed Davey, the energy secretary, will say on Tuesday.
Factories will be paid to switch off at times of peak demand in order to keep households’ lights on, if Britain’s dwindling power plants are unable to provide enough electricity, under the backstop measures from National Grid.
The Grid is expected to announce that it will begin recruiting businesses that will be paid tens of thousands of pounds each simply to agree to take part in its scheme. They will receive further payments if they are called upon to stop drawing power from the grid.
It is also expected to press ahead with plans to pay mothballed gas power plants to ready themselves to be fired up when needed.
“Both the new demand and supply balancing services will be used only as a last resort – and are a safety net to protect households in difficult circumstances, such as a hard winter or very high surges in demand,” Mr Davey will say.
What the Liberals Have Done to Our Province, Is Unforgivable!
Opinion: Ontario is deeply in debt
The Liberal record on energy, health care and education
HYDRO
Hamilton Spectator
Energy is not a luxury, it’s a necessity, especially because of our Northern climate, says Ron Cirotto..
By Ron Cirotto
In a Comment page article May 23, Bryan Kerman compared apples to oranges in comparing Canadian provincial politics to American state politics. Let us look at the facts and forget about the past and the Mike Harris era. That was then, this is now, 2014. Now Ontario is a province deeply in debt and sitting on a poor credit rating and lavishly spending taxpayers’ money without consultation or proper bidding.
In simple numbers, after 10 years of Liberal government, Ontario has a provincial debt that has doubled from $150 billion to $300 billion. Ontario has increased yearly spending from $65 billion to $130 billion. Ontario, now in 2014, is running a $10 billion-plus deficit each year. Ontario’s population, now in 2014, is 13 million, up from 12 million a decade ago.
Where have all the jobs gone? Where has all the money gone?The size of provincial government has increased dramatically, along with the total provincial debt and yearly deficit. Yet, the population has only increased by about one million. Government mismanagement is the reason. There is plenty of opportunity to allow 100,000 government employees to be released by attrition over the next four to eight years. This means the well paid remaining government employees will have to work more efficiently just like the private sector.
Energy:
There is plenty of opportunity to allow 100,000 government employees to be released by attrition over the next four to eight years.
Energy is not a luxury, it’s a necessity, especially because of our Northern climate. Ontario’s growing population cannot cut back on energy usage to heat their homes, run their appliances or turn on the lights when it is dark. Steel mills or any manufacturing company cannot run a business on expensive electric power and try to compete internationally. The Ontario Liberals signed an untendered $19-billion electrical energy contract for 25 years with Samsung without a cost-benefit analysis.
For example, aluminum production companies are located near cheap electricity, as is the case in Northern Quebec. The excess electricity Ontario generates, it sells to Quebec at a loss, which resells it to the Northern New York power grid for a profit. A billion dollars-plus, wasted on cancelling two natural gas plants for political reasons. This is not responsible management of taxpayers’ money. This is a blatant example of misguided ideology, needlessly saving the planet on the taxpayers’ dime!
A billion dollars has been spent on smart meters, yet Ontario’s electricity rates are at 15 cents per kilowatt hour in Burlington and Hamilton. Before Dalton McGuinty took Ontario’s rudder, electricity was four cents per kilowatt hour. Currently there are 1,000 wind turbines in Ontario and another 5,000 planned and they will be forced upon municipalities by the Liberal government. Why did the Liberal government spend billions on the new tunnel at Niagara Falls to get inexpensive hydro electricity and still go ahead with very expensive wind turbines? Why did the government plow ahead with a solar panel installation in southern Ontario? They promised it would provide 300 jobs, yet when finished it provided only three jobs and they are low-paying security guard positions.
Health care:
Billions of dollars have been spent on an unfinished computerized eHealth database and taxpayers are still not reaping the benefits. Money has been wasted on the Ornge helicopter mess, an arms-length, government company that only benefitted its directors, not to mention the tragic Ornge helicopter crash that killed innocent people.
Privatization:
At one LCBO location, a union leader justifiably pointed out there are eight employees and 11 managers. This is insulting to taxpayers.
Religious Schools:
In his article, Kerman appeared to be intentionally regurgitating the religious school issue by alluding to a hidden Conservative “agenda,” saying at least one lobbyist is running under the Conservative banner in the provincial election, thus rekindling fear in the voters. Who is this lobbyist? Name him or her so that he or she can be questioned. Publicly funded private schools are not the same as publicly funded private religious schools. This so-called “short step” is scare mongering.
Ontario is in deep, deep financial trouble. Kathleen Wynne’s government needs to be replaced. When you vote on Thursday consider jobs, jobs and jobs. Please do some serious soul searching before voting.
Ron Cirotto, BASc., P.Eng., lives in Burlington.
Canada & Australia Stand up to Save their Economies from Loony Left-Wing Policies!
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The political leaders of Canada and Australia declared on Monday they won’t take any action to battle climate change that harms their national economies and threatens jobs. Prime Minister Stephen Harper said that no country is going to undertake actions on climate change — “no matter what they say” — that will “deliberately destroy jobs and growth in their country.” –Mark Kennedy, Ottawa Citizen, 9 June 2014
 Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott is seeking an alliance among “like-minded” nations to thwart efforts to introduce carbon pricing and American President Barack Obama’s move to push climate change through global forums like G20. Abbott, who is visiting Canada for talks with the country’s prime minister and his close friend Stephen Harper, said efforts are underway to form a new “center-right” alliance under the leadership of Canada, UK, Australia, India and New Zealand. Reports said the alliance is a “calculated attempt” to push back on what both Mr Abbott and Mr Harper sees as a “left-liberal agenda” to raise taxes and “unwise” plans to address the issue of global warming. –Reissa Su, International Business Times, 10 June 2014 |
Time to Let the Wind Turbine Industry Stand On IT’S Own….No “Special Favours”!
Conventional Generators About to be Tested
June 10, 2014 by
In Australia and the US, the wind industry and its parasites are making wild claims about being able to deliver power at prices equal to, or less than, the cost of conventional generation sources (see our post here). Those claims are about to be put to the test. In both Countries, legislators are ready to call their bluff: if wind power is competitive, then it doesn’t need mandated targets anymore – this stuff will sell itself.
Here’s the New York Times on what can happen when lawmakers take the wind industry at its word.
A Pushback on Green Power
The New York Times
Diane Cardwell
28 May 2014
As renewable energy production has surged in recent years, opponents of government policies that have helped spur its growth have pushed to roll back those incentives and mandates in state after state.
On Wednesday, they claimed their first victory, when Ohio lawmakers voted to freeze the phasing-in of power that utilities must buy from renewable energy sources.
The bill, which passed the Ohio House of Representatives, 54 to 38, was expected to be signed into law by Gov. John R. Kasich, who helped negotiate its final draft.
It stands in marked contrast to the broad consensus behind the original law in 2008, when it was approved with virtually no opposition, and comes after considerable disagreement among lawmakers, energy executives and public interest groups.
Opponents of the mandates argued, in part, that wind and solar power, whose costs have plunged in recent years, should compete on their own with traditional fossil fuels. But the debate has taken on a broader, more political tone as well, analysts say, with disagreements over the role of government, the economic needs of the state and the debate over climate change.
“It used to be that renewables was this Kumbaya, come-together moment for Republicans and Democrats,” said Michael E. Webber, deputy director of the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin. “The intellectual rhetoric around why you would want renewables has been lost and replaced by partisanship.”
Since 2013, more than a dozen states have taken up proposals to weaken or eliminate green energy mandates and incentives, often helped by conservative and libertarian policy or advocacy groups like the Heartland Institute, Americans for Prosperity and the American Legislative Exchange Council.
In Kansas, for example, lawmakers recently defeated a bill that would have phased out the state’s renewable energy mandates, but its backers have vowed to propose it again.
Jay Apt, director of the Electricity Industry Center at Carnegie Mellon University, said the Ohio battle was “another skirmish in the question of whether we are committed to cleaning up pollution, and people are divided.” He added, “Renewable portfolio standards and other mechanisms of pollution control are not cost-free.”
The Ohio bill freezes mandates that require utilities to gradually phase in the purchase of 25 percent of their power from alternative sources, including wind, solar and emerging technologies like clean coal production, by 2025. While the freeze is in effect for two years, a commission would study the issue.
At the federal level, alternative energy industries like solar and wind have pushed hard in recent years to preserve important tax breaks that they say have helped spur new development and sharply increased the supply of clean energy flowing into the grid.
But the demand for that energy has been largely propelled at the state level by mandates, known as renewable portfolio standards, that generally set goals for utilities to increase the percentage of green energy they include in the power they buy for their customers.
Roughly 30 states have the standards, which can range from modest voluntary goals like Indiana’s target of 10 percent by 2025 to more aggressive requirements like Hawaii’s, which aim for 40 percent by 2030, according to the Department of Energy.
“Energy markets are highly policy-driven,” said Todd Foley, senior vice president of policy and government relations at the American Council on Renewable Energy. “When states and even the federal government continually revisit these policies, it sends a signal of uncertainty. It chills market and investment momentum.”
In Ohio, where opponents of the mandate argued that it raised the price of electricity and supporters worried about the loss of economic development and jobs, Mr. Kasich worked to broker the compromise bill, said a spokesman for the governor.
“We rejected the efforts by those who’d like to kill renewable energy altogether, and instead we’re moving forward in a balanced way that supports renewable energy while also preserving the economic recovery that’s created more than 250,000 jobs,” the spokesman, Rob Nichols, said. “It’s not what everyone wanted, which probably means we came down at the right spot.”
Eli Miller, Americans for Prosperity’s Ohio state director, backed by the billionaire industrialists David H. and Charles G. Koch, called the proposed law “a prudent step” to re-examine standards that could be a “potential impediment to job creation and job growth here in the Buckeye State.”
But Gabe Elsner, executive director of the Energy and Policy Institute, a pro-renewables group that sees efforts to weaken incentives and mandates as part of a campaign by utility and fossil fuel interests, said the temporary halt could do away with the law entirely.
“The fossil fuel and utility industry has been caught off guard by the rise of cheap, clean energy, and over the past 18 months they’ve responded in a really big way across the country,” he said. “We’re seeing the results of that campaign now in Ohio.”
Renewable energy still represents a small fraction of the overall energy mix, reaching about 6 percent of net generation in 2013, excluding hydropower, according to the United States Energy Information Administration. But it is on the rise, representing 30 percent of power plant capacity added that year.
For renewable developers, the outlook is uncertain. Michael Speerschneider, chief permitting and public policy officer for EverPower, which recently won approval to develop a 176-turbine project in Ohio, said the ruling would make it more difficult to find a buyer for the power, dimming prospects for doing business in the state.
“We came to Ohio based on the policies that were in place,” he said. “Changing that now, freezing it, just sends a message that says, ‘Now, we don’t want you here anymore’.”
The New York Times
Talk about contradiction. In one breath, the wind industry spin doctors talk about the (purported) plunge in the cost of wind power – pointing to “the rise of cheap, clean energy” as a mortal threat to the very existence of fossil fuel generators (the reason for the push to kill the mandated targets, apparently) – and in the very next breath they start pleading for policy mercy – claiming that without the “right” policies in place it would be “difficult to find a buyer” for wind power.
Strap yourself in kids for a quick economics lesson.
When there are 2 goods which are identical in all relevant respects they’re called “perfect substitutes”. Let’s call one good A and the other B.
Faced with a choice between 2 perfect substitutes, the rational optimizing agent (assumed to make choices that lead to optimal consumption outcomes) will always choose the cheaper of the 2 goods. If good A is cheaper than good B, there is no rational reason to choose good B – they are both equally as good as one another. It is, however, rational to choose the cheaper good A, as this frees income (otherwise spent on good B) to purchase other goods, or more of good A, say – leading to an optimal consumption outcome.
The first part of the wind industry spinner’s case is that wind power is now so cheap that it’s being chosen by consumers ahead of more expensive power from conventional sources – thereby threatening the viability of fossil fuel generators. Hence the fossil fuel driven “conspiracy” to overturn legislated mandates favouring wind power.
In both the US and here, the wind industry has been making the explicit pitch that wind power is now so cheap that it’s driving down household power prices (see our posts here and here).
At first blush, a MW of electricity from a wind turbine and from a gas turbine should – as far as the customer is concerned – be “perfect substitutes”. Let’s assume that to be the case – we’ll call wind power good A and conventional power good B.
If (as the wind industry spinners argue) good A is cheaper than good B, it’s an economics “no-brainer”: the rational optimizing agent chooses good A. On the wind industry’s pitch, the consumer chooses wind power in preference to conventional power, as the consumer will be better off in doing so.
So far, so theoretical.
But wait; the same wind industry spinners tell us that without mandated renewables targets it would be “difficult to find a buyer” for wind power. How can that be?
The little game of A versus B with perfect substitutes is played in the abstract by students of Economics 101 all over the world – and by supermarket shoppers everywhere, as they line up to choose between identical tins of baked beans. And the result is the same: faced with “perfect substitutes” the rational optimizing agent (or hungry bean consumer) chooses the cheapest option.
If wind power really is cheaper than conventional power, why is the wind industry so desperately keen to retain mandatory renewables targets?
Could it be that a MW of wind power ISN’T a perfect substitute for a MW of conventional power?
What on Earth could be the difference?
When it comes to their demand for electricity, the power consumer has a couple of basic needs: when they hit the light switch they assume illumination will shortly follow and that when the kettle is kicked into gear it’ll be boiling soon thereafter. And the power consumer assumes that these – and similar actions in a household or business – will be open to them at any time of the night or day, every day of the year.
For conventional generators, delivering power on the basic terms outlined above is a doddle: delivering base-load power around the clock, rain, hail or shine is just good business. It’s what the customer wants and is prepared to pay for, so it makes good sense to deliver on-demand.
But for wind power generators it’s never about how much the customer wants or when they want it, it’s always and everywhere about the vagaries of the wind. When the wind speed increases to 25 m/s, turbines are automatically shut-off to protect the blades and bearings; and below 6-7 m/s turbines are incapable of producing any power at all.
Even with the most geographically widespread grid-connected set of wind farms in the world (the 2,660 MW of wind power capacity connected to Australia’s Eastern grid across SA, Victoria, Tasmania and NSW) there are dozens of occasions each year when total wind power output struggles to top 2% of installed capacity – and hundreds when it fails to muster even 5% (see our posts here and here).
Now, if the power consumer was given advance warning of when these total output failures were going to occur, they might simply reconsider their selfish demands of having illumination after dark or that hot cuppa in the morning. That way, they might still consider wind power a “perfect substitute” for conventional power; and plump for the (purportedly cheaper) former over the latter every time?
But, so far, power consumers remain stubbornly selfish; wedded to the idea that when they hit the switch, their power needs will be satisfied that very instant (the cheek, hey?).
And that’s where the “perfect substitute” comparison falls in a heap.
Power delivered at crazy, random intervals (which in practical terms means no power at all, hundreds of times each year) is NO substitute for power delivered on-demand; anytime of the day or night; every single day of the year – and in volumes sufficient to satisfy all consumers connected to the same network, at the same time. Wind power cannot, therefore, be considered a “perfect substitute” for power which is available on-demand.
In the end, we aren’t talking about identical goods at all. One was deliberately designed to compliment the demands of modern civil societies (allowing mum to tend to a crying newborn at any hour of the night; allowing a business to operate around its customers’ demands – that frozen food, be sold frozen, say; and allowing manufacturers to fire-up their plant whenever the shift clocks-on); whereas, the other, is just childish nonsense, with no “design” at all.
The legislation setting up mandated renewables targets uses threats to retailers in the form of financial penalties (like the $65 per MWh fine under the RET) and/or financial inducements (like Renewable Energy Certificates, currently worth $25 per MW) (see our post here).
In the absence of those financial penalties and/or inducements the truth is that there would be no market for wind power at all. Retailers wouldn’t buy it from wind power generators as they know full well they could never sell it on to their retail customers as an exclusive product.
Sure, under our mandated target, retailers may end up “buying” wind power on those brief occasions when it’s available, but only because conventional generators provide back up with “spinning reserve” and fast-start-up peaking power from Open Cycle Gas Turbines which is sufficient to maintain a constant supply when wind power output plummets every day and for days on end.
In the absence of that guaranteed supply from conventional generators, retailers wouldn’t touch wind power with a barge pole. Moreover, it’s power consumers – not wind power generators – that stump up for the additional and unnecessary cost of maintaining and running that conventional generation back up (see our post here).
Remember, the wind industry’s key argument at the minute is that it’s delivering a “stand-alone” product at a price which is lower than its conventional generation “competitors”. However, without legislated coercion placed on retailers to take wind power ahead of all other sources, wind power generators would be out of business in a heartbeat.
And it’s these facts that explain the wind industry’s desperation to maintain mandated renewables targets at all costs.
In Australia, the wind industry and its parasites are playing a very dangerous game at the minute; taking every opportunity to spruik publicly about wind power lowering power prices because it is now said to be price-competitive with conventional generators.
STT hears that the members of the RET Review Panel (and the staffers in the PM’s office involved in the review) have taken a very keen interest in that argument. Apparently, they’re prepared to take the pitch at face value and are all set to give the obvious retort: “if wind power is competitive with conventional generators, then there’s no need for a mandatory RET at all.”
What’s that they say about the need to “be careful what you wish for”?
Proud to Stand With the Aussies Against Destroying our Economy!
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper (L) with Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott during welcoming ceremonies on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on June 9, 2014.AFP PHOTO/ Cole BurstonCole Burston/AFP/Getty Images
Photograph by: COLE BURSTON , Ottawa Citizen
The political leaders of Canada and Australia declared on Monday they won’t take any action to battle climate change that harms their national economies and threatens jobs.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Australian counterpart, Tony Abbott, made the statements following a meeting on Parliament Hill.
Abbott, whose Liberal party came to power last fall on a conservative platform, publicly praised Harper for being an “exemplar” of “centre-right leadership” in the world.
Abbott’s government has come under criticism for its plan to cancel Australia’s carbon tax, while Harper has been criticized for failing to introduce regulations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Canada’s oil and gas sector.
Later this week, Abbott meets with U.S. President Barack Obama, who has vowed to make global warming a political priority and whose administration is proposing a 30-per-cent reduction of carbon dioxide emissions from power plants by 2030.
At a Monday news conference, Harper and Abbott both said they welcomed Obama’s plan. Abbott said he plans to take similar action, and Harper boasted that Canada is already ahead of the U.S. in imposing controls on the “electricity sector.”
But both leaders stressed that they won’t be pushed into taking steps on climate change they deem unwise.
“It’s not that we don’t seek to deal with climate change,” said Harper. “But we seek to deal with it in a way that will protect and enhance our ability to create jobs and growth. Not destroy jobs and growth in our countries.”
Harper said that no country is going to undertake actions on climate change — “no matter what they say” — that will “deliberately destroy jobs and growth in their country.
“We are just a little more frank about that.”
Abbott said climate change is a “significant problem” but he said it is not the “most important problem the world faces.
“We should do what we reasonably can to limit emissions and avoid climate change, man-made climate change,” said Abbott.
“But we shouldn’t clobber the economy. That’s why I’ve always been against a carbon tax or emissions trading scheme — because it harms our economy without necessarily helping the environment.”
Abbott’s two-day trip to Ottawa was his first since becoming prime minister and it quickly became evident he is on the same political page as Harper.
They are both conservative politicians who espouse the need to balance the budget, cut taxes, and focus on international trade.
Just as Harper once turned to former Australian prime John Howard for political guidance, Abbott is now turning to his Canadian counterpart as a model.
He recalled how he met Harper in late 2005, just before the federal election that brought Harper to power.
“You were an opposition leader not expected to win an election. But you certainly impressed me that day. And you’ve impressed not only Canadians but a generally admiring world in the months and years since that time.”
“I’m happy to call you an exemplar of centre-right leadership — much for us to learn, much for me to learn from the work you’ve done.”
Harper paid tribute to Abbott for the work he has done as chair of the G20, which will hold a meeting in November in Australia.
“You’ve used this international platform to encourage our counterparts in the major economies and beyond to boost economic growth, to lower taxes when possible and to eliminate harmful ones, most notably the job-killing carbon tax,” said Harper.
mkennedy@ottawacitizen.com
The Beginning of the End for Gov’t handouts for Solar? Let’s hope so!
Solar energy users angry about end of tariff
LOCAL solar users are keen to take back control of their power generation.
The disdain raised by solar users comes after the State Government last week confirmed their position in axing the eight cent feed-in tariff on solar panels from July 1.
Retail businesses will hold the responsibility for offering tariffs after the mandated eight cent tariff paid to PV Solar owners will end on June 30.
Ross Atkin, a Gladstone solar user, says everyday households are being punished for using renewable energy.
“Solar installation does not mean wealthy,” he said.
“I installed solar to save money and for a more sustainable way of living.
“It just seems there are huge generalisations being made on behalf of the government in regards to solar.”
Mr Atkins was supported by 250 other Queensland solar users who are voicing a desire to ‘go off the grid’.
Solar Citizens national director Lindsay Soutar said last Friday that the Queensland Government would have more than 600,000 angry solar voters to contend with at the next election.
We Need Protection for our Children, BEFORE the Wind Turbines are Erected!
‘I need to protect my child from wind farms’
Credit: By Celine Naughton | Irish Independent
Whenever Jenny Spittle’s children visit their grandad in England, 12-year-old Billie comes home tired, complaining of headaches, earache, dizziness and hearing buzzing noises. Billie has autism and her mother is convinced her symptoms are brought on by the towering pylons and wind turbines located near her grandfather’s house. Now Jenny lies awake at night worrying about plans to build a wind farm close to her home in Co Westmeath.
“I see what she’s like after a week with her grandfather and wonder how she’ll cope if we have these things on our doorstep,” she says.
Like many autistic children, Billie is hyper-sensitive to sound and light. She hears sounds at frequencies that are inaudible to most people, and Jenny is afraid she will find the sound of wind turbines close to home intolerable.
“It’s not easy raising an autistic child, yet while I’m busy trying to organise psychotherapy, speech and language, occupational therapy and all the other kinds of supports she needs to help her cope with everyday life, I also have to make time to protest against pylons and wind turbines,” she says. “I can’t afford to wait until they’ve been built to voice my objections. I have to protect my child.”
Thirteen years ago, university lecturer Neil van Dokkum and his wife Fiona moved from South Africa to an idyllic part of Waterford with their two sons. Their youngest, Ian, had been diagnosed with autism and part of the reason for choosing to make their home in such a remote location was to give Ian the peaceful environment they felt he needed in which to thrive. Then, six months ago, Neil heard about the proposed construction of pylons in the area from a neighbour. The news set off alarm bells for him and his family.
“Ian is incredibly sensitive to electric noise and certain types of light,” he says. “He will start crying and become very agitated. It is a source of emotional trauma for him. My wife and I discovered the extent of this sensitivity when we installed energy-saving light bulbs in our kitchen. When Ian walked in, he put his fingers into his ears, screwed his face up tight and said: ‘Blue light off, please Daddy. Blue light off!’ I was sitting directly under the light and had not noticed anything. Ian was standing at the door, about four metres away, and he couldn’t bear it. Can you imagine how he will be affected by pylons carrying 400kV power lines? Like many other parents of autistic kids and indeed children with other intellectual disabilities, we deliberately moved to the country so as to be away from the city with its high levels of ambient noise, including electrical noise, and disturbance. At night, it can be so quiet here that I can hear the cows crunching grass in the field opposite. Can you imagine how that silence will be shattered by clanking pylons? More specifically, how my son’s silence will be shattered by the electrical noise coming from those cables? How will he be able to sleep with that noise? And how will the rest of my family sleep as Ian becomes highly agitated when awakened by this distressing noise?
“The other concern I have is flight risk. Ian, like many autistic children, has no sense of danger and will run away and on to the road at any opportunity. He is not running away from anything, but sometimes seems to feel the need to rush into an open space. Again, the countryside, with its minimal traffic and quieter roads, is far safer than a city with all those vehicles. Even so, my property is fenced and gated, not to keep people out, but rather to keep my son in and safe. My deepest fear now is that the electrical noise coming off cables and pylons will disturb him so much that he will attempt to run from it. And if he can’t get out, he will bang his head against the wall out of sheer frustration. The potential consequences are too painful to even contemplate, and if the proposed construction of pylons across the countryside goes ahead, selling our house would be impossible, so we are effectively trapped.
“If the Government were to abandon its slavish adulation of the wind industry and pursue the biomass option, converting Moneypoint power station to biomass boilers, it could save over three billion euro. Imagine how many state-of-the-art facilities for people with intellectual disabilities could be built with that sort of money.”
A Department of Health spokesperson says: “According to international literature, no direct health effects have been demonstrated in persons living in close proximity to wind turbines. However, it is agreed that there is a need for additional, well-designed studies in this area. The Department of Health advises that anyone who believes they are experiencing any health problems should consult their GP promptly.”
In its draft development plan, Westmeath County Council required any new wind farm development to implement a setback distance of 10 times the height of the turbine from residential dwellings, but the Department of the Environment intervened. Under Objective PWin6 of the plan, a turbine measuring 180m, for instance, would be sited at least 1.8km away from any house, while according to the Department’s wind energy guidelines, a distance of 500m is deemed sufficient. Minister of State for Planning Jan O’Sullivan wrote to the council instructing it to reexamine the setback distance.
“We received over 5,600 submissions from constituents who supported PWin6, which would have kept the setback distance in place,” says Westmeath County Council chairman Peter Burke. “We informed the Minister of State that we felt the Department’s guidelines were not adequate and she appointed an inspector to carry out an independent review.”
Last month, that inspector’s report recommended against the inclusion of the PWin6 objective on the grounds that it “would be contrary to section 28 of the Planning and Development Act 2000.”
At the time of writing, the Department’s final decision on the matter is pending.
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Safety first: Are turbines and pylons dangerous?
Now that Ireland’s plan to export wind energy to Britain has been scrapped, the public has been left a little breathing space to focus on a simple question: Are wind farms and their related pylons and overhead power lines safe or not?
The Department of Health’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Dr Colette Bonner, has said that older people, people who suffer from migraine, and others with a sensitivity to low-frequency vibration, are some of those who can be at risk of ‘wind turbine syndrome’.
“These people must be treated appropriately and sensitively as these symptoms can be very debilitating,” she commented in a report to the Department of the Environment last year. We asked Dr Bonner for clarification.
“Presently the World Health Organisation does not classify Wind Turbine Syndrome as a disease under the WHO international classification of diseases,” she said. “Current research in the area suggests that there are no direct health effects of wind turbines. However, there are methodological limitations of many of the studies in this area and more high quality research is recommended.”
Side by side with the controversy over wind farms comes concern over the high voltage pylons which distribute the electricity generated by the wind turbines to the national grid. Chief Medical Officer in the Deptartment of Health, Dr Tony Holohan, has stated that he does not think there is a health risk associated with people living in vicinity of pylons.
But not everybody agrees; according to British physicist Denis Henshaw, people have every reason to be concerned. Emeritus professor of human radiation effects at Bristol University and scientific director of the charity Children with Cancer UK, he recently told a public health meeting in Trim, Co Meath, that high voltage power cables are linked “beyond reasonable doubt” to childhood leukaemia and other diseases.
“It has been shown again and again that there is a definite risk of childhood leukaemia and other diseases near these lines,” he says. “The link is so strong that when a childhood leukaemia occurs near these lines there is a greater than 50pc chance that the leukaemia is due to the line. This raises the prospect of legal action for corporate manslaughter against those involved in putting the line there. The Irish government and EirGrid need to take care of their citizens and acknowledge the known health risks in people near these lines.”
A spokesman for EirGrid says: “We’re not doctors, but having taken advice from experts at the World Health Organisation, along with the chief science adviser and the chief medical officer, it is clear to us that there is no evidence to link overhead lines with adverse health effects.”
The Government report ‘Health Effects of Electromagnetic Fields’ 2007 says: “Given that there is still uncertainty about whether longterm exposure to extremely low frequency magnetic fields could cause childhood leukaemia, use of precautionary measures to lower people’s exposure would therefore appear to be warranted.
“As a precautionary measure, future power lines and power installations should be sited away from heavily populated areas to keep exposures to people low.”
Source: By Celine Naughton | Irish Independent | Published 9 June 2014 | www.independent.ie
Asthma NOT Caused by CO2. You’ve got to read this!
Johns Hopkins proves up the Hygiene theory of Asthma? Big surprise?
So for years the decline of air pollution has been associated with an increase in Asthma.
Idiots from the green left all the way to the White House, say more air pollution regulation will decrease asthma.
Now they conflate one target with another, calling carbon dioxide carbon pollution. Acting like reducing carbon dioxide emissions will reduce asthma.
LIES LIES LIES.
Bob Greene, my comrade here at JunkScience just put up a fine example of how stupid the fanatics can be–ignoring the evidence and suppressing the proper interpretation of the decline in air pollution/increase in asthma phenonmenon.
The news article discussed the research finding from a group at Johns Hopkins Med School.
Dunn notes are in perens.
Thanks for putting this up, Mr. Greene.
It is really important stuff to know.
Too-Clean Homes May Encourage Child Allergies, Asthma: Study
Exposure to a little dust, dander in infancy might prime tots’ immune systems, research finds
Too-Clean Homes May Encourage Child Allergies, Asthma: Study
By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter
FRIDAY, June 6, 2014 (HealthDay News) — Cleanliness may be next to godliness, but a home that’s too clean can leave a newborn child vulnerable to allergies and asthma later in life, a new study reports.
Infants are much less likely to suffer from allergies or wheezing if they are exposed to household bacteria and allergens from rodents, roaches and cats during their first year of life, the study found.
The results stunned researchers, who had been following up on earlier studies that found an increased risk of asthma among inner-city dwellers exposed to high levels of roach, mouse and pet droppings and allergens.
“What we found was somewhat surprising and somewhat contradictory to our original predictions,” said study co-author Dr. Robert Wood, chief of the Division of Allergy and Immunology at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center in Baltimore. “It turned out to be completely opposite — the more of those three allergens you were exposed to, the less likely you were to go on to have wheezing or allergy.”
(Dunn note: I have known about the hygiene theory of Asthma for many years, and an allergist at Johns Hopkins is “stunned” to find out this basic immunological phenomenon? Desensitization is the bedrock of allergist treatment and he didn’t know what???)
About 41 percent of allergy-free and wheeze-free children in the study grew up in homes that were rich with allergens and bacteria. By contrast, only 8 percent of children who suffered from both allergy and wheezing had been exposed to these substances in their first year of life.
The study was published June 6 in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
The findings support the “hygiene hypothesis,” which holds that children in overly clean houses are more apt to suffer allergies because their bodies don’t have the opportunity to develop appropriate responses to allergens, said Dr. Todd Mahr, an allergist-immunologist in La Crosse, Wis., and chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Section on Allergy & Immunology.
Prior research has shown that children who grow up on farms have lower allergy and asthma rates, possibly due to their regular exposure to bacteria and microbes, the researchers noted in background material.
(Dunn note: another well known thing. Now do you think the green machine thugs are going to pick up on this if it jeopardizes their case against air pollution?)
“The environment appears to play a role, and if you have too clean of an environment the child’s immune system is not going to be stimulated,” Mahr explained.
As many as half of all 3-year-olds in the United States suffer from wheezing illnesses, and recurrent wheezing and allergies are considered a risk factor for asthma in later life, researchers said. According to the American Lung Association, asthma remains one of the most common pediatric illnesses, affecting about 7 million American children.
The new study involved 467 inner-city newborns from Baltimore, Boston, New York City and St. Louis. Doctors enrolled the babies in the study while they were still in the womb, and have been tracking their health since birth, Wood said.
Investigators visited the infants’ homes to measure the levels and types of allergens. They also collected dust in about a quarter of the homes and analyzed its bacterial content.
They found that infants who grew up in homes with mouse and cat dander and cockroach droppings in the first year of life had lower rates of wheezing at age 3, compared with children not exposed to the allergens.
Wheezing was three times as common among children who grew up without exposure to such allergens, affecting 51 percent of children in “clean” homes compared with 17 percent of children who spent their first year of life in houses where all three allergens were present.
Household bacteria also played a role, and infants in homes with a greater variety of bacteria were less likely to develop allergies and wheezing by age 3.
Children free of wheezing and allergies at age 3 had grown up with the highest levels of household allergens and were the most likely to live in houses with the richest array of bacterial species, researchers found.
(Dunn note: When do I hear an apology from those who have made all these false claims about asthma. Asthma is an allergic disease air pollution is not the cause of asthma. Robert Phalen PhD air pollution specialist at UC Irvine, says that we need dirtier air to reduce asthma, not cleaner. I agree.)
“The combination of both — having the allergen exposure and the bacterial exposure — appeared to be the most protective,” Wood said.
Both Wood and Mahr cautioned that these findings need to be verified, and that parents shouldn’t make any household decisions based on them.
For example, parents shouldn’t adopt a dog or cat assuming that its presence will help immunize their kids against allergies and asthma, Wood said. At the same time, they shouldn’t ditch their family pet, either.
“We would not take any of this as information we could use to give advice,” Wood said. “Please don’t get an intentional cockroach infestation in your house. There’s no reason to think that would help.”
There are a number of other factors that could influence the likelihood that an inner-city kid will develop asthma, including tobacco smoke, high levels of household stress, or even exposure to the same sort of potentially beneficial allergens too late in life, past their first birthday, Wood said.
“This is by no means a simple story,” he said. “There could be a lot of factors going on.”
(Dunn note: they are pretending like this is realy new and revolutionary stuff. This is old news.)
Mahr said the findings could someday lead to treatments that would help infants build up resistance to allergies. “I can see someone coming up with a spray. You’d spray the crib that the kid sleeps in every so often, and let the kid crawl around in it,” he said.
(Dunn note: That’s what allergists do, they desensitize people–why is he, why is this group being so hesitant about something well known in the immunology and allergy community. Why are you acting like this is revolutionary talk?)
More information
Find out more about indoor allergens at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology.
SOURCES: Robert Wood, M.D., chief, Division of Allergy and Immunology, Johns Hopkins Children’s Center; Todd Mahr, M.D., allergist-immunologist, La Crosse, Wis., and chair, American Academy of Pediatrics’ Section on Allergy & Immunology; June 6, 2014, Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology
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